Avaya is a global leader in delivering superior communications experiences. Avaya provides the most complete portfolio of software and services for multi-touch contact center and unified communications offered on premises, in the cloud, or as a hybrid. Today’s digital world centers on communications enablement, and no other company is better positioned to do this than Avaya. For more information, please visit www.avaya.com.

Avoiding Network Outages: When the Cost of Doing Nothing is Everything

What does downtime mean to you? Time, productivity, money? Likely, you’re nodding at all three — and you’re not alone. According to Aberdeen Group, the average downtime costs a company $2,700 per minute, usually an avoidable cost when caused by a network issue.

Minimize networking issues (thus preventing avoidable downtime) through these three best practices:

Most people think about a company’s network like plumbing. It’s there, and it’s important, but unless it’s failing, it doesn’t get much attention. To make sure your network’s pipes don’t bust, regularly perform audits and correct small problems before they become big ones.

A simple audit can identify performance issues caused by physical or logical configuration errors, and provide a baseline for future comparison to de-risk configuration changes.

Best Practice No. 2: Update your network diagram regularly.

Prepare and maintain an up-to-date network diagram to isolate an outage and speed resolution by illustrating the relationships among pieces of equipment.

Rigorous configuration change control processes can then help ensure that system changes and refinements don’t inadvertently trigger outages.

Best Practice No. 1: Upgrade to a next-generation, Fabric-based network.

Customers often ask me about the cost of improving their networking infrastructure. What I tell them is that the cost of doing nothing is, in nearly all cases, substantially higher.

Old, legacy networking architectures require manual configuration changes in numerous locations across the network, making them more vulnerable to human error.

Compare this to a next-generation, Fabric-based network like Avaya SDN Fx™, which essentially eliminates human error by automatically configuring distribution and core switches. Since configuration occurs only at the edge, there’s far less potential for human error.

According to an Avaya analysis, if you have equipment that’s more than 11 years old, there’s a 36 percent chance it will fail in the next 24 months, according to a 2014 analysis by Avaya. That’s more than a one in three chance of failure. I wouldn’t bet on those odds – would you?

Brands are built on experiences. Great experiences lead to great outcomes. So how do you build experiences that matter? It just so happens we know a thing or two about that. When experience matters, choose Avaya.

Businesses are built on the experiences they provide and every day millions of those experiences are built by Avaya (NYSE:AVYA). For over one hundred years, we’ve enabled organizations around the globe to win—by creating intelligent communications experiences for customers and employees. Avaya builds open, converged and innovative solutions to enhance and simplify communications and collaboration—in the cloud, on premise, or a hybrid of both. To grow your business, we’re committed to innovation, partnership, and a relentless focus on what’s next. We’re the technology company you trust to help you deliver Experiences that Matter. Visit us at www.avaya.com.